Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Poem

I'm way behind. And that is o.k. I just completed a course in Anthropology two months ago with Ashford University online. I am looking forward to getting into a few of the less-than-scientific assumptions made by a few of the less-than-scientific anthropologists while in that course that may have tended to make a few of the Christians in that course afraid that the study of such things will cause them to question their faith. But instead, I found myself in the third week of Introduction to Literature, writing one literary criticism research paper after another, planting three gardens, throwing a bridle on my chestnut, bareback every morning, and leading the other one down the road a mile to pasture everyday (falling off one morning for lack of enough coffee and winding up with a terrible nagging shoulder injury). Riding my bike back in the morning, and out again in the evening to pick them up, while I wait for my own pasture to dry out. I'm still waiting. It has been record wet here -- 'record this' and 'record that', recently. I have also been working as a CNA 2-3 days a week and presently find myself in the middle of a philosophy of logic class working on a paper demonstrating how science and religion do not conflict. In fact the realm of science belongs to him -- God that is. There is sound science, and false science. Just like there is sound Christianity, as well as unsound Christianity (even moreso, comparatively, than in science). Christians have to know the difference between 'sound' science and 'unsound' in order to be effective witnesses in this modern age. You cannot discount the legitimacy of science merely on account of some false or sloppy science widely being accepted as true, any more than you can discount Christianity due to the pervasive presence of false teachers and false doctrine.

I just turned in my outline for, "Does Science Conflict with Religion", in which I narrow things down, on the one hand, to "real" science, and on the other, to the "so-called" religion of the only known God. We combine them and we have God's science, and God's religion. Paul's famous discussions with the philosophers of the "unknown God" on Mars Hill will not be a part of my argument. His life, witness and testimony are well known to all, now, and were certainly available to science and observation during that day (science is simply the exercise of the senses in making observations and drawing conclusions), and are even more relevant in the present day argument. But even more strikingly, God has personally been engaged with mankind since the beginning of time, became flesh for us in Jesus -- whom he refers to as his son, and has now given us a fascinating glimpse into the spiritual particle realm of this world (beginning with what we call the God Particle, and so on). Science is not its own, it is God's.

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Oh well, I don't know if that clears up anything. To many of us, it is self-evident.

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My Teaching Assistant in this Logic class, who had a bible studies degree, coincidentally, just quit. Today or yesterday. That is all I know. I am going to guess that it is to a prestigious teaching job in this same field of Philosophical Logic (God's Logic -- simply the tools for sound reasoning, which the bible asks us to do).

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It had been too long since I had written anything here, in my blog. I have been very busy. I am going to school full-time (30 credits/yr), and less than a year-and-a-half away from a four-year BA degree in Applied Behavioral Science. After that I will start my own counseling service (family, marriage, mother-daughter, father-son/daughter, who knows), find field-work in anthropology, or get a job at Home Depot. I am a Christian in this world.

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Take a look at this man's credentials (page bottom). A man of this much life learning, study, and education could probably challenge a medium-sized hard-drive with all of the mechanics, theories, methodologies, critical tools and just raw information contained in his head, yet. . . he is best known and appreciated for his simple, imaginative poetry. His long and hard earned mastery of knowledge in many fields means nothing to anyone except that he can produce a truer understanding of the simple. A simpler understanding of the complicated. That sort of gift can save us from the false sorrow of this young boy who has not yet learned to think beyond himself. I have been there. Let your mind do its job, give it time, give it the proper tools, give it good unadulterated data to work with. Watch your hard-drive grow in knowledge and understanding. It will lead you to fall on your knees before the only God who has ever spoken. And your joy will be made full.

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And then enjoy this thought provoking poem. The day is coming.

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Boy at the Window

Richard Wilbur (1952)

Seeing the snowman standing all alone
In dusk and cold is more than he can bear.
The small boy weeps to hear the wind prepare
A night of gnashings and enormous moan.

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His tearful sight can hardly reach to where
The pale–faced figure with bitumen [1] eyes
Returns him such a God–forsaken stare
As outcast Adam gave to paradise.

The man of snow is, nonetheless, content,

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Having no wish to go inside and die.
Still, he is moved to see the youngster cry.
Though frozen water is his element,
He melts enough to drop from one soft eye
A trickle of the purest rain, a tear

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For the child at the bright pane surrounded by
Such warmth, such light, such love, and so much fear.-

Footnotes

Richard Wilbur (b. 1921)

He is an American poet, literary translator, and university professor. He was born in New York and graduated from Amherst College. After serving in World War II, he earned a master's degree at Harvard University. He has taught at Wesleyan University and served as writer in residence at Smith College. He lives in Cummington, Massachusetts.The second person to be named U.S. Poet Laureate, he has won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry twice. Most of his poems are reflective, restrained, orderly expressions of his deeply felt emotions and values.

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The answer for me...

2 Corinthians, 11:3,"But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity of devotion to Christ."

I have found that the world, the flesh, and the devil, are always trying to get between God's Word and man's understanding of it. But it's a nuisance I am learning to manage. My answer has been to, "long for the pure milk of the word...,"1 Peter 2:2. It's the Truth that makes you free.

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